Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

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Charger440
Posts: 1529
Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 7:44 am
Location: Missouri

Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Charger440 »

I like this forum but there is only a few of us regularly active....

How many of y'all do service contracts and what services do you include in your area? What price do you market them at? Right now I am mainly break/fix and I do gadget repair but I am looking to get into service contracts for some regular monthly income.

Not many people around here do them so I need to come up with something enticing but not screw myself either. Everyone wants Fillet Mignon service for Pork chop price.

What's you guys' thoughts on this?
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
Xander
Posts: 438
Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 11:55 pm
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Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Xander »

ConstantCare.ca
WeeklyCare.ca
Charger440
Posts: 1529
Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 7:44 am
Location: Missouri

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Charger440 »

Xander...

Interesting... You use this? You affiliated with it? I noticed the basic info leaves a lot of questions about what you could wind up paying...
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
Xander
Posts: 438
Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 11:55 pm
Contact:

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Xander »

Those are my sites so...yes, I use it.

What questions? It's $10/mo base and +$3/mo with AV. No other charges mentioned other than $29 for MBAM if they want it.
Charger440
Posts: 1529
Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 7:44 am
Location: Missouri

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Charger440 »

Did not realize they were your sites.

Keep in mind I am not judging you... When I read over the pages it looked like you were charging $10 a month to look at the computers every couple days and say "Yep, looks good." It also appears that any actual work you do on the computer you still charge for that but looks like at a discounted rate? If I have this correctly, how well does it actually work for you? I know the website gives the impression business is booming but we can make webpages represent anything we want. If it really is going pretty good then that is great and for sure something worth looking into, as well as valuable input.

I have been mulling prices and services around in my head for a while now but still have not decided on a mix of enticing people to pay for it and not screwing myself in the process.
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
Charger440
Posts: 1529
Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 7:44 am
Location: Missouri

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Charger440 »

Xander

I was looking at your site again and looked at the google map in your about page. Nice car. I like how you had the logo and address put on your car. I have considered doing that but didn't want the added expense on the insurance. I am still building up to that though and I think it's a good idea but right now I am trying to maximize my money. Although that might not be bad idea except that my truck spends most of it's time sitting in front of my office....
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
Xander
Posts: 438
Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 11:55 pm
Contact:

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Xander »

I've got about 90 PCs on it so, by itself, it pays for my rent. I go through MaxFocus(GFI) and use the monitoring and Tasks only (and AV, if they've opted for it). I review Alerts every morning and, on occasion for a few PCs, remote in to kickstart things.

I know of other techs (when I was on technibble) who would charge $25/mo for the same service but, IMO, that's robbery. This covers my expenses and daily time to review and send out the odd email about alert issues.
One plus I've added that I don't think I've put on the website is priority callback.
FredJClaus
Posts: 323
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 6:21 am

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by FredJClaus »

Not sure if I understand your question, but I do MSP type work in my area of the country. I charge a flat monthly fee based on the number of computers the office has. My fee is no less than $70.00 a month for one computer, which includes a full clean up every month, checking for needed updates, virus scan, and one software based service call extra a month.
Charger440
Posts: 1529
Joined: Sun May 25, 2014 7:44 am
Location: Missouri

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Charger440 »

Fred J

How well is your plan received? Have you hard time getting customers to go for it? Is your clean up and updates done remotely or in person?

This is exactly the kind of info I am looking for. You and Xander have different approaches and I think both of them have very good points to them.
Jim

It is not "Can it be done?" but rather, "How can we do it?"
FredJClaus
Posts: 323
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 6:21 am

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by FredJClaus »

My prices are very reasonable in my area. $10.00 a month may be great for the clients that Xander is trying to get in front of. For residential clients I charge $200.00 a year for monthly cleaning per computer. For commercial clients I charge monthly.

It takes a bit to develop your presentation, and you really need to put a presentation together based on who you are talking with. Let's say I am dealing with a church. There is a lot of information on membership for the last 100 years, as well as the finances of the church on that system. They are willing to pay a much higher fee than what Xander is charging for the piece of mind that their system will be taken care of, and if a disaster strikes, there is a recovery plan in place. Now if you however were in front of a mom and pop small engine shop, you may want to talk about customer databases, and invoicing systems. The membership and other things that are important to a church, are not as important to the small engine shop.

It took a while to get in front of the people that would pay for my services, but I'm slowly getting there. My work WAS done on site, but now that I have Simple Help, I do it all remotely unless I have to go on site for some reason.
Xander
Posts: 438
Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 11:55 pm
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Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Xander »

A church or small business requires different levels of attention than residentials do.

Wait, you were doing a monthly cleanup ON-SITE for $200/year? That seems like a ton of lost time and gas money there.
FredJClaus
Posts: 323
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 6:21 am

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by FredJClaus »

No Xander, the 200/year was for cleanings 3 times a year not every month.

Let me ask this. The site you posted for 10.00 a month. Was that residential work?
wrc559
Posts: 118
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:38 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by wrc559 »

Not sure if this will help anyone who is wanting to know what their competitors are doing.
This is my website in the works

http://www.digitaldealsq.com

You can see the prices I offer, At the moment this is consumer only. I am building a business one which will see a price increase of at least 25%.
FredJClaus
Posts: 323
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 6:21 am

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by FredJClaus »

That's great information. I tried something like that but it was 200.00 a year. Maybe I will try 10.00 a month instead.

Site looks awesome on my mobile device. What remote access program do you use?
Xander
Posts: 438
Joined: Sun May 24, 2015 11:55 pm
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Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by Xander »

Wrc559, nice site and very thorough. What are you using behind the scenes (e.g. Maxfocus), or do you do it manually? Are you automating anything for the junkware removal stage? That's an area I'd like to develop to keep the toolbar crap off of systems. Right now, I'm installing Unchecky on those clients.


Btw, you've got some typos on your site: "avialable, however if you take a look at our calander "
wrc559
Posts: 118
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:38 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by wrc559 »

Xander wrote:Wrc559, nice site and very thorough. What are you using behind the scenes (e.g. Maxfocus), or do you do it manually? Are you automating anything for the junkware removal stage? That's an area I'd like to develop to keep the toolbar crap off of systems. Right now, I'm installing Unchecky on those clients.


Btw, you've got some typos on your site: "avialable, however if you take a look at our calander "
Thanks for pointing out the typos, my web development software does not indicate typos, so I know there probably is a few. I count of guys like you helping me fix it ;)

Everything is done manually - payment processor goes to paypal, but I link everything through wordpress with an addon that manges all users through what plan they get giving them different access through the forum im building.

Junkware removal - I did not have any luck with unchecky on a system getting lots of chrome addons, i am now just manually removing junkware. My interaction with the client is about 30 mins of work & upto 2 hours of remote session activity waiting for programs to run, through UVK & Tech Tool Store.
We can to into more detail?
wrc559
Posts: 118
Joined: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:38 am
Location: Australia
Contact:

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by wrc559 »

FredJClaus wrote:That's great information. I tried something like that but it was 200.00 a year. Maybe I will try 10.00 a month instead.

Site looks awesome on my mobile device. What remote access program do you use?

Depending on clients computer savvyness Ill use a mixture of TeamViewerQS to get access to the PC easily then move over to Zoho Assist, which I have a premium account with to complete all the jobs.

Out side of TeamView, reason for not using it continuously is because without a license - I have had instances where it has disconnected the session after a set period which I think was 1 hr.
FredJClaus
Posts: 323
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2014 6:21 am

Re: Wish there were more people active.....Service Contracts

Post by FredJClaus »

I used Zoho assist in the past too, but only had the free membership. How do you like the premium?
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